Exploring Weather and Climate - First Edition

• Preface
• Chapter 1: Introduction and Atmospheric Structure
• Chapter 2: Energy and Earth's Energy Balance
• Chapter 3: Pressure and Wind
• Chapter 4: Atmospheric Moisture I
• Chapter 5: Atmospheric Moisture II
• Chapter 6: Global Circulations
• Chapter 7: Midlatitude Cyclones and Wind Systems
• Chapter 8: Lightning and Thunderstorms
• Chapter 9: Tornadoes and Hurricanes
• Chapter 10: Optical Phenomena and Weather Forecasting
• Chapter 11: Earth's Climates
• Chapter 12: Human Influences on the Atmosphere
• Chapter 13: Paleoclimates and Climate Variability 
• Chapter 14: Anthropogenic Climate Change and Earth's Future Climate
• Chapter 15: Climate Change and Extreme Weather
• Chapter 16: America's Climate Choices
• References, OER, and Public Domain Materials Used

This textbook is oriented toward a first or second year college science class, or an advanced high school course. Sixteen chapters are present which fits a 16-week college semester. These chapters may be divided into three sections:

1. Atmospheric processes including structure, composition, energy balance, pressure forces, moisture, stability, and precipitation processes in Chapters 1 through 5.

2. Weather systems including global circulation, tropical and extratropical cyclones, thunderstorms, tornadoes, atmospheric optics, and weather forecasting in Chapters 6 through 10.

3. Climate topics including classification, human influences on the atmosphere, natural climate variability, paleoclimate, climate change due to anthropogenic influences, climate projections, and a changing climate’s affect on extreme weather in Chapters 11 through 16.